Just Like a Real Person

San Anselmo: Adrienne is a very patient woman. This is good, for her patience is sometimes tried. By Tulip’s barking, Percy‘s attacking her foot, my snoring. For example.

Sometimes she will say, “One of these days I’m going to have a real bedroom that’s quiet, like a real person.” For example.

I’ve been thinking about this real person …

These days, we enjoy Sunday pancakes and omelettes at Two Bird cafe. On our drive home, I inquired to learn more about this real person. Here is what I have learned …

A real person lives in a nice house, with adequate nice grounds around the house, and the house is well-maintained. The real person has lots of time for fun projects, playing with the dog, and has help around the nice house.

The real person drives a decent car. It might not be new, but it needs no body work, and it’s clean. You don’t have to struggle with the shift lever. You never need to worry about this car, because nothing is broken.

The real person has mostly casual clothes, but a few party things, because the real person is invited to parties by friends, and also invited to parties by friends of those friends. With these friends, the real person goes on tours and to dinner.

The real person is not lazy, and works, of course. The real person works about 5-6 hours a day, Monday through Thursday. In order to support this nice house, car, clothes, friends, tours, dinners, and parties, it would seem that the real person would need a take-home pay of about $4500 monthly from this work.

This work could be anything. Whatever a real person wanted to do. For example, it could be dog walking, or something healthy and fun. Now this might not bring in the entire $4500 after-tax income; but, if not, the real person’s partner would chip in.

The real person has a love partner, of course. This other person would also be a real person, because no real person would be with a workaholic. The partner would not be somebody who spent all day in front of a computer, for example.

So the partner, being a real person, also works 3-4 days a week, for somewhat limited hours, and they have time to spend together. I suppose that the partner must bring in even more after-tax dollars, so that the chipping in part works out.

So, now I know, for the first time, what a real person is. I’ve been wondering, and now I know.

Clarity is a wonderful thing.